Photo Credit: gamerfitnation.comFaces, faces, faces, facesEverywhere you turnThe more you learnThere is no real difference among races.
Excerpt of Poem, “Faces” from if only the gods were awake
by Guyanese-American Poet Gary Girdhari

On 13 July 2013, the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin not only raised concerns about Stand Your Ground laws in America, but also reminded us that the election of a black president did not mark the end of racism.

As defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica, racism is any action, practice, or belief that reflects the racial worldview—the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races,” that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral features, and that some races are innately superior to others.(The emphasis is mine.)

There is ample historical evidence that all peoples share the same human intelligence. The BBC series, The Lost Kingdoms of Africa, were an eye-opener for me. The great achievements of ancient African kingdoms were not “lost.” They were hidden from us to perpetuate belief in African inferiority.

The documentary film, Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, astounded me even more. Based on research of human genetic markers on the Y-chromosome conducted by Spencer Wells, an American geneticist and anthropologist, the documentary traces the geographical dispersal of early human populations back to our origin in Africa. In other words, each racial group carries the genetic marker of the same African ancestor. Given the theoretical nature of some of his scientific methods, these findings will no doubt be refuted by those seeking to maintain racial inferiority.

The more we learn about ourselves and our origin, the more it will become clear that the division of our species into several races, ranging from white supremacy to black inferiority, is a fallacy of the rulers of empires past and present. Their intentions were and remain the division, subjugation, and exploitation of those peoples defined as inferior.

In my upcoming three-part series, I will tackle the diverse, overt and covert manifestations of racism in Guyana, Brazil, and the United States. Though differing vastly in size and economic development, these three nation states share one thing in common. Situated in the Americas, formerly known as the New World, they were all colonized by European powers of the time. The imported African slave labor force was crucial to their expansion and economic development.

We have come a long way since the emancipation of black slaves. But Zimmerman’s acquittal reminds us that the entrenchment of racial profiling and racial stereotypes will take many more generations to be eradicated from our society. Until then, the specter of race will continue to threaten the lives of those of us who are not white or cannot pass for white.

One fact of having a long-standing private practice as a clinical psychologist was that I found out a great many things about people that were incidental to the reasons they consulted me. It dismayed me a great deal that some of the people I treated — quite well to do and otherwise good and decent folks — displayed elements of racism.

Dr. Stein, thanks for sharing your own experience with the manifestation of racism. Historically, we’ve been so long conditioned to racism that we don’t even realize when we’re being racist.

As a brown-skin person with curly hair and a Caribbean accent, I experience subliminal manifestations of racism in my relationships with decent and generous white Americans. I will share these racial subtleties in my blog post on racism in America.

Racism, national, religious and cultural superiority, castes system, gender subordination, etc are all divisive elements that will continue to be an integral part of society. Today there are hangups about blacks, Muslims, Jews, Christians, low castes, rich and poor,atheists, gays and lesbians, etc that will never change in some people’s minds. There are bigots and there will always be bigots and racists among us. However, education about our origin, who we are and our genetic relationship hopefully will help remove the ignorance of one race or one class being superior over another. None of us is greater than all of us.

That’s a good question, Deokie. Education begins at home and by example but, as a parent, I know that that is not enough. All of society must change. Don’t know how we’ll go about doing that.

Is the president a racist? Only he can truly answer that. I personally believe that we who have been influenced by colonialism, and which nation has not, are all racists to some degree. I’ll be touching that aspect in my next post about racism in Guyana.

I tend to agree as well. Ethnicity, in my opinion is our natural identity and as humans we all need to accept that through nurturing and the socialization process. Can we destroy genetic composition? No matter what, it will show up somewhere!